Record card or like member for indexes or files



May 27, 1930. c, s, CAMPBELL ET AL 1,760,474

RECORD CARD OR LIK E MEMBER FOR INDEXES OR FILES Original Filed Oct. 10, 1921 ori inal appiaatan filed October 10, 1921, Serial No. 506,819. Divided. and. this application. filed May 6,

Patented May 27, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT orrlce CHARLES s. oA rBELLANnALrRnn E. HUNT, on NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, AS- SIGNORS, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO REMINGTON BAND me, or NEW YORK,

N. Y, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE rtnconncann on LIKE MEMBER FOR INDEXES on FILES 1924. Serial No. 711,488.

This invention relates to record members for indexes or files, and more particularly to that class of the latter in which eachof the reference members is overlapped by the succeeding member and projects a short distance beyond the latter'so as to disclose a small portion of itssurface to enable the indicia thereon to be read without the manipulation of the members. V i

This application is a division of our application, Serial N 506,819, filed October 10,

192l,and pertains more especially to the par ticular form of reference members and the engagement of the same upon a supporting frame wherein the reference-bearing portion is adapted to be detachably hingedto the su orten a 'in ortion and wherein a similar reference member may be superposed upon another before nesting the same between two single ones.

Our invention is particularly applicable to those indexes orfiles whereina plurality of such reference members are carried by or upon a suitable support and usually these members are arranged to slide along suitable guides and to be easily detached from the support and replacedthereupon. It is some times necessary when one of the reference members has-become filled with memoranda to remove it and file it away for future reference. In this connection it will be found desirable to detach the reference bearing portion of the reference member fromtha't portion of it which is adapted to be attached to vide a sectional reference member having a section adapted to be attached'to a suitable support, and a reference-bearing Section hinged thereto.

A still further object of our invention is to provide a reference member in which the reference-bearing section is hinged to and may be readily detached from the stub section by which the member is secured to a support.

A still further object of our invention is to provide a reference member having a reference-bearing section which is detachably hinged to a stub section by which the member 1s secured to a support, the stub section being provided with support-engaging means of such construction that a plurality of such reference members may be superposed before belng engaged upon the support, in orderto provide additional area upon which reference memoranda may be placed.

To 'these' and other ends the invention consists in the novel features and combination of parts to be hereinafter described and claimed.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 1 is a front elevational view of a p111 rality of reference members embodying our invention, mounted upon a support;

Fig. 2 is a view of one of the reference members, showing the reference-bearing section detached from the stub section; v

Fig. 3 is a sectional View of one of the .referencemembers on line 3+3 of Fig. 1 showing the hinged connection between the sections of the same;

Fig. 4 is an enlarged sectional view on line 4-4 of Fig. 1, and,

Fig. 5 is an enlarged seetional view on line 55 of Fig. 1, of a plurality of nested cards, certain ones of which are superposed before nesting between others.

To illustrate the principles of our invention, we have shown a support of the general type shown in Patent No. 1,048,056 dated De-' cember 24:, 1912, and granted to Irving Fisher, wherein a suitably mounted guide strip is adapted to be engaged by tongues projecting from the rear of each of the reference members. veniently mounted on a swingin support, in a shallow drawer or suspended from a hook, as desired. This longitudinally extending guide strip 10 is provided with free side edges or flanges 11, which may be offset at the edge from the body of the strip and below Such a guide strip may be coni .away and any disposition desired'may which the tongues 12 of the reference members designated generally by the numeral 13, are adapted to engage.

The reference members consist generally of a. stub portion at either the upper or the lower end thereof, depending upon the position upon which they are placed upon the support, and a section for the reception of reference material or memoranda which is detachably hinged to the stub portion.

In the form of our invention shown, the stub section 14: is detachably hinged to the reference bearing section 15 by means of a weakened line 16. By means of thisperforated or weakened line which composes the hinge structure, the section 15 may be swung about the stub section to permit convenient access to the card or cards below, or tothe back of the card in question for the purpose of posting thereon, as is clearly shown in dotted lines in Figs. 3 and 4:. By

means of the location of the tongue members 12, a portion of the edge of each of the cards is exposed so that the person using the index or file may instantly perceive the character of the reference material upon any of the reference members.

As shown in Fig. 2, when it is desired to remove a reference portion of the card or member for the purpose of filing orfor any other purpose, this may be done by detaching the reference section from the stub section by separating the same at the hinge line. he reference section may then be filed n be made of the stub section. If it is desired. to obtain access to one of the upper cards, as shown in Fig. 1, it will not be necessary to remove any of the members from the support, or even to slide them along the guide strip, but the reference members lying below the one to which access is desired may be swung outwardly because of the hinge structure, in this instance, the weakened line, so

that the entire surface of the reference memher in question is exposed. The reference material on this card may then be read or new reference material added, as desired, without the removal thereof from the support.

A particularly advantageous feature of the provision of hinged reference-bearing section in combination with certain forms of attaching means of which the one shown is an'illustration, resides in the fact that two or more. of the cards may be superposed and secured upon the holder in this position thus greatly increasing the reference-bearing or posting surface which may be available upon one holder. particularly in Figs. 4 and 5, wherein two superposed cards 21. and 22 are filed between an outer card and an inner card 23, the stubs of the superposed cards 21 and 22 being nested between the tongues 12 and the stub body of the card 20, and the stub of the card Thisis shown more 23 being nested between the superposed tongues 12 and the superposed stub bodies of the cards 21 and 22. The superposed cards 21 and 22 in vthis arrangement constitute a double leafed card, having a stub portion and tongues of double thickness. It is thus seen that while two posting surfaces, (one upon each side of the card) are provi ,led upon each of the two outer cards 20 and 23, four posting surfaces are provided by the two superposed cards 21 and 22 which, however, occupy no more space longitudinally upon the support 10 than a single card. It is apparent that as the cards are usually nested as shown in Fig. 1, the number of them and, therefore, the amount of posting surface available is limited by the length of the holder orguide strip 10. The superposition of the cards, as shown in Figs. 4c and 5, therefore, results in the multiplication of the p stinfr surface available on one holder.

This superposition is, of course, particularly desirable where the hinge sections are provided, as this enables the outer card to be swung outwardly, the user thereby gain-' ing access to the card below.

If desired, more than two cards may be placed upon the holder in superposed posi tion and the number .of posting surfaces thereby increased to any extent practicable in view of the material of which the cards are made. An example of this is shown in Fig. 4-, wherein three cards 24, 25 and 26 are shown superposed and nested between the cards 23 and 27.

The tongues 12, of the uppermost referenceniember, by passing through openings in the remainder and engaging the flange 11, constitute the engaging means for supporting all of the superposed members upon the guide strip 10 as well as retaining them in superposition. In some instances, the underlying cards of a set of superposed ones may not be provided with tongues 12, but may merely have. openings or suitable passageways therein through which the tongucs 12 of the uppermost card may pass. By this arrangement, there will be formed a refcrence-bearing member having a stub portion of double thickness, with a plurality of leaf portions and a tongue or tongues of single thickness. By this arrangement, the possibility of the tongues filling up the limited space beneath the flanges 11, when the reference members are mounted upon a swinging leaf or in a drawer, would be obviated.

\Ve do not limit ourselves necessarily to a card having a reference-bearing section and a stub section detachably hinged together by the use of a perforated or weakened line, as various separable hinge joint structures would allow the detachable hinge effect contemplated.

While we have illustrated and described some preferred forms of our invention, it

will be understood that the same is not limited to the exact details shown but is capable of many modifications and variations which lie within the spirit of the invention and the scope of the appended claims. 1

hat we claim is 1. In an index or tile, the combination of a support, and a plurality of reference members mounted in superposed substantially coincident relation, each reference member, having a stub portionat one side formed with openings, tongues on said stub portions projecting into said openings, and a reference-bearing portion having a separable hinge connection with its stub portion, the outermost stub portion having the tongues thereon extending through the openings in the other stub portions an d detachably engaging said support to mount said plurality of reference members on said support in interlocked relation, and each reference-bearing portion being independently detachable from its stub portion without disturbing the interlocking connection between the stub portion and said support.

2. In an index or file, the combination of a support, and a plurality of groups of refer ence members in overlapped relation, each group of reference members comprising a plurality of havingstub portions, and reference-bearing portions detachably hinged thereon in substantially coincident relation, each stub por- .tion having openings formed therem and tongues projecting into said openings, the tongues on the stub portion of the uppermost reference member extending through the openings in the stub portions of the other reference members of the group and engaging said support to provide an interlocking connection between the reference members of the group and for mounting them on the support, the stub portions of an adjacent group of reference members internesting between the tongue of said uppermost reference member and the stub portion of the lowermost reference member of the group, whereby adjacent groups are offset to position the free marginal portions of the reference-bearing portion of said uppermost reference members, in adja cent groups, in visible index relation.

In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this 30th day of April, 1924.

CHARLES S. CAMPBELL. ALFRED E. HUNT.

superposed I reference members 

